The Legend of Zelda: The Evil Realm
by Kherezae
Summary: "I've looked," Kirali said. "As much as I could, I looked. I found nothing, Link. Nothing. There is no magic here. Stories, yes. But no magic. And without magic, there's no way to get home. No way to open a door."
1. The Door

Disclaimer: If I owned the Zelda series, this would be a book, not a fanfiction :) This is purely for enjoyment: Mine, and hopefully yours as well. I would greatly appreciate reviews, however!

FYI, this is based on Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask era Link.

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The Door

There was a calming rhythm to the arc of Link's sword and the heat in his muscles despite the adrenaline of the fight. A Wolfos howled when his sword landed deep in its side; Link yanked the blade out and swung it at the next beast. Their panting and growling surrounded him.

"Look out!" Tatl called from behind him; he immediately lunged toward the sound, burying his sword into the neck of a Wolfos in mid-leap. The creature crumpled, falling away from his sword, but the next was already on him. "Link!"

Pain tore through his shoulder, but he didn't flinch; he drove his sword through the Wolfos' gut before it could find his neck with its teeth. If one of the beasts got its jaws around his neck, there would be little he could do.

He turned, striking away claws and teeth as he surveyed the carnage around him. Five Wolfos down, including the one dropped by Epona's first kick. Two remaining. But pain was quickly deadening any other sensation in Link's arm. He still had the precision of his strong arm, but only half the power behind his swings.

"This way!" Tatl cried. Link followed the voice with the tip of his sword and struck true into the neck of one of the remaining Wolfos.

The final beast trembled, its eyes wide with panic. Link saw the desperation in its eyes before it struck and brought his sword up between them. The Wolfos tensed, its muscles coiling for the lunge, and then it was coming, all snarls and claws. It met Link's sword with a jarring impact that sent pain lancing through his wounded shoulder, and the blade went clean through the Wolfos until their bodies were touching. Claws ripped at Link's back, and panic rose metallic in the back of his throat when he felt its hot breath on his neck and the sharp tear of teeth against his spine. But there was no strength behind it-the Wolfos slowed and finally fell limp against him.

Link pushed the dead beast away, angling his sword to let the body slide off. Sweat slicked his clothes to his body everywhere, but the hot wet on his right side was from blood. He ignored it for the moment, turning to scan for Epona. Her whicker pulled his eyes toward the trees at the edge of the clearing, and she separated from the shadows, stepping through trunks so tightly spaced she hardly fit between them. He wiped the blade of his sword against his tunic-it was already splattered with blood anyway-and then met her at the edge of the clearing. He let her press her head against his side and nip at his tunic while he checked her for injury. She snorted complaint when he raised each of her legs, but otherwise surrendered peacefully to his inspection. Aside from a shallow cut on her flank, she was fine.

"Hey, look," Tatl said, jangling to catch his attention. Link looked up toward the fairy and then past her to a huge, rusted set of iron doors that stood at the far edge of the clearing. "Think they were guarding this?"

Link shrugged his good shoulder. "Could be."

"Let's check it out!" the fairy suggested, bouncing in the air.

Link pressed his hand against his wounded shoulder and looked at Epona. She stared back with one huge blue eye. "What do you think?" She gave a noncommittal snort, so he nodded and turned back to face the doors. "Let's go."

The ache in his shoulder was dulled by adrenaline, but it was starting to sharpen. He pushed it aside for the moment in favor of crossing to the wrought-iron doors. The design on them must have been intricate once, but the accumulation of rust and the light ivy growth made it impossible to distinguish. Link brushed aside a vine and found that the iron behind it was almost shiny compared to the rusty metal around it. The design had to be some sort of scene; he thought he could make out part of a face, but it was hard to tell.

"Open it," Tatl jangled, impatient. A small smile pulled at Link's mouth in response, but he did as the fairy asked. The door handle felt weak with age, so he pulled gently at first.

It didn't budge. There was no help for it; he would have to put his back into the pull. The doors must have rusted shut, and it was entirely possible he would rip the handle off before getting them open. But he wiped his bloody hand on his tunic and wrapped his fingers around the handle, paused to gather his strength, and then lunged backward.

The groan of the hinges sent a chill down his spine, and then the handle gave a sharp crack and broke off in his hands. He nearly fell back, but he caught his balance and straightened. The door was open a crack; he wedged his body into the gap and then pushed backward, forcing it open further.

The forest on the other side did not match this one. Link stepped back to survey it, returning his hand to the wound on his shoulder, which was bleeding again. On the other side of the door, the trees were spaced more naturally and sunlight streamed through them, making the ground almost bright compared to the gloom of the Lost Woods. In the distance he could see the trees break away to grass, and there was a house in that broad, grassy clearing. There was none of the eerie atmosphere of the Lost Woods.

He put a hand on Epona's shoulder. "Ready girl? Let's take a look."

Epona whinnied. Link stepped away from her to cross through the doorway, but he heard her following behind.

The change was immediate.

Heat, openness, and agony.


	2. Far From Home

Far From Home

He fell to the ground, clutching his head with his hands, bent around himself against some unknown torturer.

Pain wrenched at his gut, clawed through his arms and legs, pounded at the insides of his skull. His cry cut short, strangled by the spasm of muscles in his neck, but he heard Epona screaming and a quieter, more terrifying noise: Tatl's voice, like the sound of shattering glass.

His muscles knotted and twitched. Blood flowed freely from his shoulder and even the shallower cuts on his back, pushed by the frantic beat of his heart against his ribs. The pain was somewhere deep inside him-hot, searing agony-but it lanced outward like light scattering off ripples in water.

There was no way of knowing how much time passed, but the pain began to subside. The sun was still out-or had it fallen and risen again while he was curled up on the ground, trembling and jerking through the pain?

When he felt steady enough, he pushed himself up to his knees. He fumbled through his belt pouch for a healing potion and swallowed it whole.

Nothing. The pain was less, but there were still the wounds on his shoulder and back. And the pain was lessening on its own. Was it a bad potion? That had never happened before.

A terrible keening noise pulled his attention to Epona. She was on the ground, her neck arched and the muscles in her legs pulled tight. Link crawled to her, putting his hands against her nose and jaw. Her eye opened and rolled up at him. The pupil was wide with terror. "Shh," Link murmured. "You're okay. It's okay."

What happened? Link stroked Epona's face absently while he looked around. Had they stepped into a trap? Was this some sort of spell? And where was Tatl? "Tatl?" he called quietly.

The smallest noise drew his eyes to the faint glow of the fairy on the ground. It sounded like pebbles grating together. Link gave Epona a reassuring stroke and then crawled to Tatl, gently scooping her from the earth and cradling her in his hands. "Tatl?"

"Dying," she said. He could barely hear her, and the word froze him to the core.

"What should I do?" he asked, matching her quiet voice.

"Go home," she said.

Link turned back to look for the doors.

They were gone.

He spun, looking all around, but they were nowhere in sight. When he looked through the trees, he could still see the large house in the clearing-it was the same perspective. They hadn't moved. But there were no doors. No way back home. "I don't know how," he whispered. "The doors are gone."

Her response was a breath like wind chimes on a nearly breezeless day. It sounded like surrender.

"Don't," Link said. "Here." He lifted his hat and put her gently underneath, nestling her in his hair. He ignored the twinge in his wounded shoulder. "Stay with me, Tatl. Talk to me if it helps."

"Little better," she said. It was broken, like she barely had energy to form the words. "Feel... something here."

"Hold on," Link said. "I'll find a way home."

He crawled back to Epona and put one hand on her jaw, using the other to rummage through his pouch for another healing potion. He pulled the cork free with his teeth and swallowed the bitter liquid, then held his breath.

Still nothing.

What could he do? He was bleeding and lost with no way home, Epona was in more pain than he'd ever seen her, and Tatl was dying. At least in Termina there had been doors to go back through to get home-he just had to find his way to them.

But what could he do now?

He stared at the house in the distance as he stroked Epona's jaw. There was no place else to go. His chest tensed-it felt like a trap, to lure them here with no place else in sight but that house-but he had been through traps before. And what else was there?

"Epona," he murmured. "Can you get up? We need to move. I won't leave you here."

She gave a piteous whinny, and for a moment she remained completely still. Then a shudder rolled through her muscles from neck to flank, and she rolled to get her legs underneath her. Link expected one of her disparaging looks, but her usual humor was gone. She braced herself, then pushed herself upright.

"Good girl," Link murmured, patting her neck. "Stay alert. We're going to take a look at that house."

Epona cocked her ears toward the house. When Link started forward, she paced along beside him-she was in no apparent pain anymore, but she still seemed shaken. "Tatl?" he asked. The weak, wordless jangle he received in response worked both to reassure and worry him.

They broke from the trees; suddenly the heat of the sunlight enveloped Link, a striking difference from the cool underneath the leaves where only fractured rays of light made it to the ground. The throb in Link's wound worried him. When he put his hand over his shoulder, he found that it was still bleeding, and without potion to heal it that blood loss was suddenly very serious. He pushed it from his mind, focusing on what might well be a trap waiting ahead.

The house was larger than he'd expected, and surrounded by a low fence that looked more like decoration than barrier. There was a strange, bulky shape along the path he was following to the house: close to twice his height with a small boxy skeleton on top and a wider, faded yellow base hunched over four large rounded... legs? The front two legs were smaller than the back. The beast hunched behind a short but wide metal shield that curved inward; the bottom edge looked like it could inflict mortal damage easily. The creature appeared to be slumbering, but Link didn't trust that he would be able to pass without waking it. He drew his sword with his strong hand, put himself between the beast and Epona, and moved cautiously forward.

It made no move as they passed. He kept his sword trained in its direction, but there wasn't the slightest twitch of motion to indicate that it sensed their presence. It didn't even look alive, but that didn't fool Link; he'd had stranger things come barreling at him with murderous intent. It made him almost more anxious to have it sitting quietly behind them once they passed than he would have been to fight it, even in his current condition.

He kept his ears trained for any noise behind him, but he faced the house to prepare for any danger lurking ahead of them. At the fence he stopped and turned to Epona. Lead her in or leave her outside? The grassy area enclosed by the fence didn't look like it was meant to be disturbed by a horse's hooves. There was no telling where she'd be safer-out here with the slumbering giant, or in there with whatever dangers might still be lying in wait. "Wait here," he told her, pulling his fingers gently through her mane. "But be ready in case we need to run."

She snorted and nipped at his tunic. He took that as agreement and stepped across the fence, approaching the front door of the house. There was no change in the air around him. Nothing leapt out to attack him. Tension coiled around his spine, keeping him alert as he stepped up onto the wooden deck that ran the length of the front of the house. His footsteps thumped against the wood, but there wasn't even a creak to lend danger to the air. The innocuous atmosphere only served to tighten his muscles. He stopped in front of the door and raised his hand to knock.

The inner door opened before he had a chance to announce himself. He felt his hand tighten around his sword hilt, but the sight of the girl inside the house-and the urgent look on her face-locked him in place. There was still a door between them, just a frame with some sort of mesh stretched around it, but she pushed this open, forcing Link to step aside. She pulled the inner door shut and put a hand on his chest, guiding him to the side to stand against the wall and away from the door. "Goddess, you're a mess," she said quietly, pulling her hand away and wiping it against her trousers. "What, were you in a fight with a Wolfos?"

"Seven," he said, too startled to say anything else.

She gave a short laugh that made her sound almost as surprised as he was. "Of course you were. Wow. Look, I've got to get you cleaned up before"-

The door slapped open and a short but bulky man stepped out onto the deck, leveling a long metal tube at Link's chest. "Kira!" the man bellowed.

Link tried to bring his sword to bear, but the girl stepped in his way. The man let out a string of words in a language Link couldn't understand, and the girl responded in kind. The danger was palpable-but he sensed that the man was defensive of this girl, and that she was protecting Link. She kept herself between them, her hands up toward the man in an appealing gesture. Link lowered the tip of his sword, but kept ready in case he needed to strike out.

The pounding of his heart sent blood washing over his shoulder. His clothing was so thoroughly soaked with blood that it could absorb no more. Despite his adrenaline, his arms trembled. He was weakened. He feared what would happen if it came to a fight. The strangers continued to argue back in forth in their odd language.

Finally the man let the tip of his metal tube drop slightly, adopting a wary stance and losing much of his aggression. His next words carried the clear intonation of a question. The girl responded, but Link began to lose grasp of her voice. It wavered, like she was speaking from far away but trying to reach out to him.

The light swam, and fairy light flickered in and out around him. There was a ringing in his ears, but that was wrong-fairies did not make that sort of noise.

The light collapsed around him, crushed by darkness that shrieked in and swallowed the world away.

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	3. World Without Magic

World Without Magic

It was the noise that woke Link. Not a loud one, but it was high-pitched, rhythmic, and incessant. His thoughts struggled free of the dead still of unconsciousness, and he marked the slight increase in speed of the noise. It matched the beat of his heart.

The realization tightened his spine. He opened his eyes and sat up in one motion; it made his head spin, and a sharp tug at the crook of his right arm pulled a faint gasp from him. He was in a room, unnaturally white, with the long rays of sunset light seeping in through a pair of large openings on one wall. His shoulder throbbed. It had been a long time since he last had to let an injury heal on its own, and it hadn't been as severe as the Wolfos bite.

Whispered, foreign words snapped his attention to his other side. The same man and girl from before sat beside his bed in chairs, and they appeared to be having a quiet but fierce argument. She glanced up at him with an expression that looked apologetic and continued to exchange soft words with the man, but eventually her posture slumped and she sighed. She nodded and turned to face Link. "Hi," she said. Her hylian was clear as crystal. "I'm Kirali."

"Link," he said. "Where am I?"

She frowned. "See, I'm trying to figure out how I should answer that," she said. She studied him intently, and her eyes flickered to his head. He reached instinctively for his hat and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it intact, although when he looked down he saw that he wore some sort of thin white tunic instead of his normal clothes. "I didn't let them take it," Kirali said, glancing at his hat again. "I saw fairy glow when they tried, and... see, that's why I'm confused." She frowned, bringing her thumb to her mouth and holding it there as she watched him. Did it help her think? How odd.

"Tatl?" Link asked quietly. He heard a weak jangle. Relief and fear for the fairy intermingled in his abdomen.

"You've just gotten here," Kirali said. "You must have. For your fairy to still be alive, for you to still dress... Well. But what I don't understand is how you aged. You look Kokiri. But you're too old. How?"

"I'm not Kokiri," Link replied. "Tatl is not from Hylia. She chose to follow me from her own world, Termina."

The man beside her spoke a few short, harsh words. She shot a glare his way and replied in a similar tone, but then her voice softened into something pleading. Link had never heard anything like the language they spoke, but he thought it sounded different from the first one they'd used when he met them. More liquid, words rolling together. After a brief exchange, the man seemed to relax a little. He leaned back in his seat and watched impassively. Kirali turned back to Link. "To answer your question, this is Earth. More specifically, we're in San Bernardino, California. You're in a hospital." She paused, her eyes flicking up to his hat again and then back down to his face. "In this world, a hospital is where sickness and injury is taken care of."

"My healing potions didn't work," Link said as he gave his shoulder an experimental roll. The pain was less than he expected, but still there. He thought it might have something to do with the slight dullness to his senses. His body felt lethargic, weighed down.

"There is no magic here," Kirali said. Her voice was a whisper he could barely hear. "That's why we can't leave."

"Can't leave?" Link's fingers moved to the hem of his hat before the thought fully connected, and then the pit of his stomach dropped out. "I have to get Tatl home. She's dying."

The minute flash of pain across Kirali's expression surprised him. It was gone as quickly as it came, but it left her more subdued than she'd been. "I'm sorry. But you'll have to say goodbye to your-to Tatl. Aven... Aven only made it a few days."

"Aven?" Link asked, but her words snapped together into realization even as he spoke the name. "Your fairy?" She nodded, that expression of pain on her face again. The man beside her stiffened, studying her face and then glaring at Link. He ignored it and looked closely at Kirali: A petite girl, but clearly at least Link's age, with a small nose and eyes so green they seemed to shine against the dull colors of the room. Her hair was long, wavy, and red. She shifted under his gaze as if she was uncomfortable and brushed her hair behind one pointed ear. "Kokiri." His voice was quiet, but Kirali heard it and nodded. "How long have you been trapped here?"

"Seven years." She looked away from him, down at the backs of her hands as she twined her fingers together. Her hair fell forward, hiding her ear again. The man put a hand on her back and started to speak, but she shook her head and said something that calmed him down. "I'm sorry. How rude. Link, this is my father-well, this is Angel Rivera. When I got here, he took me in."

Her father raised his head at the sound of his name and nodded to Link, saying something in their unfamiliar language. "Good to meet you," Link replied, responding to the tone of Angel's voice. "I'm Link."

Kirali, he assumed, translated for him, because he heard his name and Angel nodded. "He's worried for me," Kirali told Link. "He doesn't understand that we come from a different world. A man showing up with a sword and bloody clothes-that's never a good thing here. He just wants to protect me."

"I have to find a way back," Link said, impatience winning out over manners. "I can't just let Tatl die. And-" He broke off. Would anyone miss him, really? If the princess sent men looking for him, it wouldn't be for months. It wasn't as if Link made a habit of checking in. "I have to get back. There has to be a way."

"I've looked," Kirali said. "As much as I could, I looked. I found nothing, Link. Nothing. There is no magic here. Stories, yes. But no magic. And without magic, there's no way to get home. No way to open a door."

"Not possible," Link muttered. Kirali gave a weak shake of her head; it made his abdomen clench and his teeth grit. He fisted his hands, but forced himself to relax when he saw Angel's knuckles whiten on the arms of his chair.

The door to the room opened and a woman stepped halfway in, speaking to Kirali and her father. Link listened closely; her words were harder, different from the language Kirali and Angel had been speaking before. Kirali tensed and started to argue in that same language-the one he'd first heard them speak, he realized-but Angel put a hand on her arm and she cut off. She slid forward in her chair, twisting her fingers together on the edge of Link's bed while her father and the other woman exchanged words. "I have to go now, Link. But I'll come back as soon as I can. I'll do everything I can to help you. I promise."

The urgency in her voice verged on panic. She didn't seem confident in her promise. As he watched her leave, Link wondered what would happen if she failed.

They left him alone in the room but for the dying fairy in his hair and the constant sharp sound that accompanied his heartbeat.

#

"Papa, please. He's not crazy, I promise. And he's not violent. He's from the same place I am, and he needs my help." Kirali took long steps to keep up with Papa; he seemed determined to either leave her behind or too breathless to speak. They reached the lobby and she skipped forward, grabbing his sleeve and hauling him to a halt.

"From Hylia?" Papa asked in clear, quiet Spanish. Kirali stiffened and glanced around the room, but no one noticed the strange name. Why would they? It didn't exist. Not here.

She ignored the question. That led to a slippery slope-an argument she was afraid she couldn't win. "He speaks my language," she whispered instead. "It's real. Not something I made up-the language, at least. I understand him. He's stuck here, all alone-maybe somebody left him. I don't know. But he needs my help." Papa looked unconvinced. Kira was aware of the heightened pitch of her voice, but she continued anyway, reverting to the pleading of a little girl. "Papi. Please. No one else can understand him. He'd be alone and confused. When they couldn't figure out where he came from, they'd study him. Like some lab rat."

"Maybe they can find where he came from," Papa said. But she sensed the softening in his voice. He spoke more quietly, his Spanish rolling together faster. "Just because you couldn't-maybe they'll find his home. The place you came from. You could finally know, Kira."

"They won't," she whispered, her voice so low he might not be able to hear her. It was still hard to tell, with humans' duller ears. But when she met his eyes, she saw that he hadn't missed the words. "Papi," she murmured, seizing hold of his weakness. "Please."

Link's doctor approached at a brisk walk, pulling Papa's attention away from her. The woman's heels clicked on the linoleum floor. In English, she asked, "Did you find someone to take responsibility for the boy?"

"No," Papa replied. He looked down at Kira for a long moment, sighed, and then looked back at the doctor. Dr. Allen, Kira read on the woman's nametag. "My daughter speaks his language. He doesn't know where he is or where he came from."

Dr. Allen pursed her lips. "Does he have any memories?"

Papa looked down at Kira, and she turned to the doctor. "He knows his name," she said. "He remembers being attacked. He said it was a wild dog or something." Ordinarily lying would make her nervous, but she'd planned these lies knowing that Link wouldn't know to come up with them on his own. He wouldn't know anything. Without her help, he'd end up in a psychiatric ward somewhere, poked and prodded while doctors tried to figure out who and what he was... "I don't think it's amnesia or anything. If I had to guess..." She swallowed, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. Her hands made a nervous movement toward her hair, checking whether her ears were concealed. Ears just like Link's. "It sounded like he was raised by some group of weirdoes. A cult or something. And when he turned seventeen, they just dumped him in the wild to see if he survived. I mean, he made it sound like some rite of passage he'd failed. But..."

The purse of Dr. Allen's lips grew more severe, almost comical. "Oh dear," she said, scribbling a note on Link's chart. Kira felt her belly clench and avoided looking at her father, knowing he would see through the lie. She hoped it was the right one to tell. The one that would allow them to release Link to her. She could easily make it worse, she knew. But what else could she do? If he was eighteen, he wouldn't need guardianship. But either way they could try to put him in custody instead of letting Papa take him home. If he even would.

"I will take responsibility for him," Papa said. Kira's shoulders collapsed, the frantic tension she'd been holding in bursting from her lungs in a single rush. Papa's arm encircled her shoulders and he bent to kiss the top of her head. "Kira is adopted. We believe she may have been abandoned the same way when she was young. It's why she knows the language... She had fewer memories of the place than this boy, but what she did tell us seems to match up."

"I'm not sure if that's wise," Dr. Allen said. "In situations with severe psychological conditioning, as often occurs in cults-if that is, indeed, the case here-the children affected can exhibit unusual tendencies. And we haven't even fingerprinted the boy yet. We may be able to discover his identity and track this thing down."

"By all means, do what you need to do," Papa replied. "Isn't there some kind of testing you can do to check... I don't know, if he's normal? If he can function in the normal world?" Kira flinched at the word 'testing,' but kept her silence.

"Of course." Dr. Allen scribbled more notes on Link's chart. "Given what you've told me, yes, I plan on having psych tests ordered up right away."

"You'll need me," Kira blurted out. "To translate for him."

Dr. Allen pursed her lips again. Did she have any other expression? "Not advisable. We'll need to find an impartial translator."

"Good luck trying," Kira said. There was more anger in her voice than she intended; she paused and reined in her temper. "We've never found any record of my language. It-it must be one the cult or, or whatever invented. Because no one knows it. We've looked for years."

Dr. Allen looked skeptical, but had the grace to say, "That may be. The psychiatric staff will make the call, if that's the case. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is go home and get some rest. The boy needs time to heal. What did you say his name was?"

"It's Link," Kira said. "I didn't catch his last name."

Dr. Allen nodded and scribbled the name down. "Visiting hours start at noon. If we need you before then, we have your information. We'll contact you."


	4. The Right Lies to Tell

The Right Lies to Tell

Kira pulled into the hospital parking lot at 2:45, fifteen minutes before Papa had told them to expect her. There had been quite a lot of speeding involved in making such good time. It still felt like forever after being stuck in school all day. There'd been no arguing with Papa about it, which was stupid considering it was a wasted day. She was so distracted worrying over Link that she had no idea what had happened in any of her classes.

She all but sprinted into the hospital to the main reception desk. The floors were a little slick under her flats and she slid up against the counter, catching herself with her palms on the edge. "Hi," she said, breathless.

"Oh, my," the receptionist said as she looked up at Kira. Her hair was pulled back in a bun tightly enough that her raised eyebrow looked ridiculous. "Where's the fire, sweetie?"

"They need me upstairs. I'm going to translate. Patient's name is Link." She stopped to take a breath, leaning her weight onto the heels of her hands.

"Just Link? Like Madonna?" She was already checking the computer monitor in front of her. Kira took in her scrubs and wondered if she ever did more traditional nursing work or if she was always stuck behind this desk. "Ah, yes. One moment." She picked up the phone, punched in an extension, and then carefully held the receiver to her ear. Her manicured nails were absurdly long. Not a real nurse, Kira decided. "I have a—" She broke off, giving Kira a pointed glance.

"Kirali Rivera."

"I have a Kirali Rivera here for Dr. Allen." She twisted the phone cord around her index finger as she listened, then gave a sharp nod. "Alright. I'll send her up." The receiver clicked against the plastic of the cradle when she hung up and met Kira's eyes. "Fourth floor. Room 413."

"Thanks!" Kira called over her shoulder as she darted toward the elevators. They'd moved Link; yesterday he was on the third floor. Hopefully that was a good sign, but she worried that moving to a higher level of the hospital was only moving him further from the exit.

She slowed her pace when she approached room 413. It would do no good to show up looking half-crazed when they were trusting her enough to translate Link's psych evaluation. The door was shut, so she knocked hard three times.

"Don't stop," she heard from inside, followed by footsteps. The door opened and Dr. Allen greeted Kira with a tight smile. "You're early. Good."

"How has it been going?" Kira asked, leaning a little to glance past the doctor. Link was sitting up in his hospital bed with a pen gripped awkwardly in one hand. It looked like he was tracing something. A male doctor sat on the far side of the bed, watching Link's progress and occasionally checking his watch.

Dr. Allen gave a low chuckle. "Well, considering the language barrier. So far we haven't identified it."

From her tone you'd never be able to tell Kira had told her as much just yesterday. She brushed past the doctor and went to stand beside Link. She didn't want to break his concentration so she kept her mouth shut, but she leaned over him a little to see what he was doing. There was some sort of maze on the tray over his lap, and he was navigating it with the pen. After a moment he reached the outside of the round maze and lifted the pen.

"Forty-three seconds," the male doctor announced. Kira checked his nametag: Dr. Lewis. He looked quite a bit younger than Dr. Allen, perhaps in his late twenties, and he was clean shaven but for a small patch of dark hair on his chin. He looked up, caught Kira staring, and smiled. "You're the one who can speak to him?"

She glanced away and nodded. Her eyes connected with Link's and her heart sank. He looked confused, but there was something worse. She got a sense of panic from him, scrabbling just beneath the surface. "How are you?" she asked in Hylian, her voice soft.

"I don't understand the purpose of these tests." The words burst out like he'd been holding them back for ages. "They have me tapping blocks together and building patterns from pictures! What are these mazes for?" He pushed the one he'd just finished away. It fluttered off the tray, revealing a stack of less complex mazes underneath.

"I'll ask," she said. "Hang on." His knuckles whitened on the tray as if he took the words literally. She looked back at Dr. Lewis as he picked up the maze from the blanket over Link's legs. "He's confused about these tests. He wants to know what they're for."

The doctor nodded and gave her a sympathetic smile that she supposed was intended for Link. "They are tests of cognitive development. A kind of intelligence test. There are very few nonverbal tests we could give, but these gave us an idea of Link's potential. He did very well."

Kira relayed the words to Link as accurately as she could, though if there was a Hylian word for _cognitive_ she couldn't remember it. "He says you did really well. Considering they couldn't exactly give you instructions, I think that's pretty impressive."

He let out a sharp breath of air. "I still don't understand. Why do they care about my intelligence? When can I get out of here?" He lifted his hand, grazing his fingers against the hem of his cap.

"There are rules here," she said. The words had the ring of an apology. "They can't just let you go. They have to make sure you're safe."

"I can take care of myself."

Kira shook her head. "Safe for others," she clarified.

"It's good that you're here," Dr. Lewis said, dragging Kira's attention back to him. "We have one more test for today, but we need a translator."

"That's what I'm here for."

She felt the breeze as Dr. Allen stepped up beside her and looked up to meet the woman's eyes. "Ms. Rivera, it's very important that you translate the test questions exactly and let Link choose his answers. We will tell you what instructions to give, and you must translate them word for word."

"We want the test results to be as accurate as possible," Dr. Lewis explained. "It's the best way that we can help him."

She noticed the brooding look on Link's face and turned back to him. "They have another test for you. They're warning me to translate the instructions and questions exactly, but Link, I might have to help you. Things are very different here from Hylia, and I don't want you stuck in this hospital forever."

He nodded. Kira turned back to Dr. Lewis and gave her own nod, and he pulled a briefcase onto his lap. "This is called a Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory, or MACI. It's a standard test to identify personality patterns. It consists of 160 true or false questions." He set a packet down in front of Link and locked eyes with Kira. "Please tell him that he needs to answer each question with true or false as honestly as possible."

Kira put her fingertips on one corner of the test, twisting it so she could read it. The questions seemed ridiculous to her. Anyone who didn't want to be branded as a nutjob could figure out the best answer to choose. One of them read, _I do my very best not to hurt people's feelings._ But she nodded and glanced up at Link. "I'm going to be reading you these questions. You'll respond true or false." She pointed to the true column. "True." She moved her finger to the false column. "And false. They want you to answer honestly, but I want you to choose the best answer to get you out of here. I'll help you."

"Thank you," he said. He picked up the pen again and gave her a small smile.

She looked up at Dr. Lewis and gave a sharp nod. "We're ready. I'm going to get started. But first," she added suddenly, "can you tell me how long it will take to get the results? How long before we know if we can take him home?"

"One step at a time," Dr. Lewis said. "First let's make sure he's suffered no psychological damage from wherever he was."

The non-answer made her seethe, but she just turned to the test to guide Link through. "We'll have to be careful," she warned him before starting. "They can't understand us, but they're not idiots. They can read our body language and try to tell if I'm giving you answers. I think they expect me to."

"I'll do whatever you tell me to," Link said. "Don't worry."

#

The doctors seemed to have accepted Kira's presence at the hospital and didn't try to feed her any bull about visiting hours. That meant that, in the end, it was Papa who had to come and drag her home. "You can go back tomorrow," he'd assured her, but he didn't understand what it must be like for Link to be stuck in that sterile white room.

She used the last of the daylight to go check on his horse. She was a huge mare with an auburn coat and white points, and Papa was already taken with her. Kira grabbed a brush and slid into the horse's stall. "Hey girl," she said, keeping her tone soothing. The mare watched her intensely as she moved but allowed her to bring the brush against her neck. She had the eeriest blue eyes. "I hope Link will be able to come home soon. I'm trying my best." She could swear the horse's ears perked at the words.

She steered clear of the heavy saddlebags the horse still wore as she worked. Papa had warned her that although the horse was agreeable enough to most commands, she wouldn't let him near the saddle or anything she carried. Kira talked as she worked, keeping the words soft and soothing. "They're running these tests on him and I'm worried about how he'll do. I helped as much as I could, but I didn't want to make him seem too normal considering he supposedly came from some cult." She sighed as she moved the brush to the mare's flank. "I just want to get him out of there. I remember what the hospital was like when I first got here. He must feel so trapped."

She fell silent for a while, and the horse curved her neck around and rolled one big blue eye toward her. Kira couldn't help smiling. She ran a hand down the mare's nose. "Don't worry. I'll get him home soon. I have to."

The mare gave a distinct nod and turned her attention to her food. She seemed more intelligent than Kira expected even from a Hylian horse. She had the odd sensation that this horse would hold her to her promise somehow.

* * *

Next chapter I'll return to Link's perspective, but with what was going on in this one I felt Kira was best. Please review! :)


	5. Strange World

Strange World

They'd stopped pumping Link full of the medicine Kirali called morphine two days ago, but he still felt as if his nerves were deadened. Time dragged by in the hospital. He had never been cooped up for longer than a few hours before, and he was starting to lose his mind. "Tatl," he whispered, though he'd checked on her just a few minutes ago.

She gave a weak jangle from under his hat, just a single note. She hadn't spoken since the forest, and that was five days ago now. No—six. It was hard to keep track.

A knock sounded on the door, and then the woman known as Doctorallen stepped into the room. She said something foreign with his name thrown in the middle. Kirali and Angel followed her into the room.

Kirali was smiling, and she was carrying a bundle of clothing and his boots. He felt relief swell until it filled his chest and sent a heady rush through him. "Kirali. Can I leave now?"

"Yes." She crossed the room and set the bundle on the edge of his bed. He turned and swung his legs over the edge, reaching for the clothing, but his hands hesitated over the unfamiliar fabric. "Most of your clothing got thrown out," Kirali said. "Sorry. These are normal Earth clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt. Go on and get dressed so we can get you out of here!"

Link was so anxious to leave he nearly stripped out of his hospital gown right there, but then he remembered the little bathroom at the back corner of the room. He grabbed the bundle of clothing and closed himself into the privacy of the washroom. For a moment he was in the dark, but then he fumbled for the little switch Doctorallen had shown him and light flooded the room.

The rough blue fabric wasn't so different from normal trousers, and the shirt was easy enough to pull on even if it was too light to feel right. The pants were too thick and loose to fit comfortably inside his boots, but he shoved them in anyway. That left an absurdly small pair of white shorts that he wasn't sure what to do with, so he carried them out with him.

Kirali covered a snort of laughter with one hand when she saw him, and pink crept into her cheeks. She stepped up to him and grabbed the shorts from his hand, shoving them into a pocket on the trousers he wore. "We'll talk about those later."

Link had to pull the pants up a little after her motions tugged at them. They were a little too loose at the waist. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah, we're leaving. The paper work is all done. Come on." She grabbed his hand and led him toward the door. She spoke in that other language to her father, and then the three of them finally left, Doctorallen trailing behind.

Link couldn't remember going below the second floor of the hospital. The small room that moved between floors—"An elevator," Kirali explained—was the strangest thing he'd seen in the last few days. But there was much more waiting on their way out of the hospital. Great glass doors that slid out of the way as they approached, for one thing.

Outside the hospital, instead of earth there was a vast expanse of some sort of black stone. There were lines painted on it, and weird beasts or structures of some kind huddled there in rows. Doctorallen exchanged words with Kirali and Angel just outside the hospital, but Link ignored her when she tried to speak to him. He took in Kirali's relaxed posture and decided there were no threats in this unfamiliar landscape.

They left Doctorallen behind. Angel took the lead, but Kirali stayed with Link, keeping her hand in his. "These are cars," she said, nodding toward the massive shapes on either side of them as they walked. They shone in the sun. When he really looked at them, he could see that they had glass windows going around an enclosed cabin in the middle. "People don't really use horses and wagons to get around here. We have these cars. We're driving home in Papa's truck—it's a sort of car, just shaped a little differently—so you'll see what I mean."

The cabin of the 'truck' was smaller than those of the other cars they'd passed. Angel and Kira opened doors on either side, and Angel climbed up into the left side behind some sort of wheel. Kira climbed in and slid to the middle, then gestured for Link to sit in the space she'd left beside her. She said something to Angel, and Link started as the door he held on to vibrated with movement. The glass window slipped down into the body of the door.

"Come on, sit," Kira said. "I asked Angel to roll the window down for you. Trust me, you'll need it."

Link climbed up beside her and pulled the door shut. He leaned back against the seat when Kira twisted around him, grabbing some sort of strap from beside him and pulling it across his chest. She fastened it to his other side with a click of metal, and then pulled another strap across her own chest and did the same. "Don't worry, this is just a safety precaution," she said. "We'll be moving fast. If we had to stop suddenly, these seat belts would keep us from shooting forward."

Link nodded and felt his knuckles blanche when something rumbled to life inside the truck. Suddenly they were moving—slowly at first, and then faster, wind picking up through the open window. He turned his face into the wind. It felt so free compared to the closed off space of the hospital room.

They rode for a long time. The city around them was like nothing Link had ever seen. Many of the buildings were tall and metallic, reflecting the sunlight until shadows hardly seemed to exist around them. Others were brick or stone or some unknown material, but all were taller than most of the buildings in Kakariko or even Hyrule Castle City.

Gradually the buildings began to shrink and spread out, until eventually they were speeding through fields and forested areas more familiar to him. The sunlight, wind, and steady thunder of the truck made Link feel drowsy, but he'd had enough sleep in the hospital. He took in everything about their trip back to Kirali's home.

Eventually they pulled up a dirt drive to the house where he remembered meeting Kirali nearly a week before. He'd left Epona by the fence, but Kirali had assured him she was well cared for. Still, he wanted to check on her first. Once they'd climbed down from the truck, he turned to Kirali and asked, "Where is Epona?"

She held up a hand and looked at her father, who was speaking quickly in the more fluid language they used sometimes. They argued back and forth for a moment, but Link could tell from the petulance in Kirali's tone that she wouldn't win. Finally she sighed and nodded, looking back at Link. "I'll take you to Epona later, but right now Papa wants to talk to you. I'll translate." She threw a sharp look over her shoulder at Angel, then grabbed Link's elbow. "Let's go inside."

If he'd thought about it, Link would have expected the conversation that followed. Angel had gone out of his way to help a stranger who showed up bleeding on his doorstep, and Kirali had already made it clear to Link how unusual that was in this world. They could have left Link in the hands of that hospital, but Angel and his wife—who Link had only met once, and only briefly—had taken on responsibility for Link and everything that entailed. And he wanted Link to help out around the farm in exchange for that kindness. Kirali apologized for her father, but it made perfect sense to Link. "I'll do whatever he wants me to," he said, cutting her off. "And please thank him for me." He looked at Angel as he said the words.

Kirali translated for him, and when Angel nodded, it was the first time Link had seen the man look at him with any genuine warmth in his eyes. It was familiar because every time he looked at Kirali that warmth was there, but it was weird to get that look himself. Angel turned back to his daughter and gestured widely, speaking in a tone that hid laughter underneath. She nodded and smiled. "Come on, Link. Let's go check on Epona." She stood and crossed to the door. "Mama will be home soon, and then we'll have to help Papa while she makes dinner."

It occurred to Link later, as he was brushing down an uncharacteristically affectionate Epona while Angel and Kirali looked on, that he couldn't stay and help for long. He was thankful for what Angel and his family had done, but Link had to get home. He didn't know where to start yet, but he doubted it was here.

* * *

If you've stuck around this long, I hope you're enjoying the process. I know it's a little weird to forge forward without an overall synopsis laid out. I assure you there's a larger plot, not just Link-copes-on-Earth, but I didn't want to skip these bits along the way. It's important to me that this feel very real, and I hope I'm accomplishing that.

I would appreciate reviews! :)


	6. Stories

Stories

Working on the farm was a significant improvement over the hospital. Link got to move around, work his muscles, burn the heat out of his blood. His wounded shoulder ached, but he would rather deal with that pain head on than sit in bed and ignore it all day. He couldn't talk to Angel, but they communicated in their own way. Angel was great at getting across what he wanted Link to do.

But every hour he spent here was an hour longer Tatl had to try to hang on. It was an hour he could be spending trying to get home. So in a way, this was just as much a prison as the hospital had been.

There was no way to communicate that to Angel, so he worked hard and without complaint. Angel fed him a delicious lunch and didn't babble at him the way the white-coats in the hospital had. The quiet was a relief.

He was mucking the stables when Kirali made it home from school. She met him in the stable and grabbed a shovel of her own, joining him. "How has it gone today?" she asked as she worked.

"It's better than the hospital," he said. "I like the work." He shoveled another clump of waste into the wheelbarrow and then started leveling out the bedding. There was only one more stall after this one: Epona's.

"But?" she asked, brushing her hair behind one ear and pausing her work to look up at him. When he kept smoothing instead of responding, she sighed. "I hear the but in your voice. What is it?"

"I can't stay here long, Kirali." He leveled the last of the bedding and then propped up the shovel, leaning the handle against his hip. "I have to get back to Hylia. For Tatl, but also just because it's home." He paused, meeting her unwavering glance. "I'm grateful to your father. I have rupees I can leave him, if that's any help. But I can't stay."

Kirali looked away, threading her lip between her teeth. Link let out a low breath and set his shovel in the wheelbarrow, wheeling it over to Epona's stall. Kirali followed, still silent. She didn't speak even as he started on mucking the stall, though she did help. They were nearly done when she finally collected whatever thoughts had been tripping through her head. "You have no idea what you're dealing with here, Link. I've lived here seven years, and I haven't found any trace of real magic or anything that could get us home. And I speak the language. I can get around. If you tried to run off, Link, you'd find worse trouble than the hospital. You wouldn't be able to communicate. You'd probably go and get yourself shot!" She stood breathless, her shovel slightly raised, and met his eyes with heat in her stare. Link held it, his expression neutral, until her shoulders finally dropped and she looked away. "You really don't get it."

"Kirali, you have no idea what I've seen, either," he said softly. "I can't give up." He looked back down at his work, shoveling more soiled pine shavings into the wheelbarrow.

She shoveled in silence for a few more moments, but then she released a deep sigh. She leaned against the handle of her shovel and eyed him, one hand on her hip. "Okay. Fine. I can't stop you from leaving, but can you at least stay long enough to learn a few things? English, for one. You won't get far if you can't speak English." She must have recognized the look on his face, because she added, "We can use the time to do some research. To find a place for you to start looking. There's another thing you don't understand: This world is a huge place. Much bigger than any of the parts of Hylia we know about."

Link nodded, reluctant, as he started smoothing the bedding in Epona's stall. "I will stay until I have an idea of where to start," he agreed. Though he knew that his idea of a place to start might differ from hers. It was the best he could agree to.

They finished mucking the stall and laid their shovels over the wheelbarrow, straightening. Link stretched to ease the ache from his back and especially his shoulder. He felt weaker after his stay in the hospital, and it was weird that sharp pain still bit into his shoulder sometimes, but he could already feel his body getting back to normal. A soft "Oh" from Kirali brought his attention back to her.

She left the stall and crossed to the opposite wall, running her fingers over Epona's saddle where it hung from a set of nails. "This is yours. Where did the saddlebags go?" she asked.

"I took them to my room," he said.

"They were so full. Papa and I wondered what was in them, but Epona wouldn't let anyone close to touching them." She turned back to Link, closer than he expected, and looked up into his eyes with something earnest and hopeful in her face. "I haven't seen anything from home in… well…"

Link smiled. "I'll show you. Let me just take care of this." He grabbed the wheelbarrow and wheeled it from the stable.

#

Kira climbed into Link's 'room' above the barn to wait for him. Papa had suggested it as a joke—there was a guest room in the house, after all—but Link preferred it. She couldn't really blame him. There was no air conditioning in Hylia, and sleeping in the house would have been strange to him. Mama had tried to argue with the arrangement, but it hadn't lasted long.

He'd already made himself at home. The air mattress Papa had brought up for him was against the one wall bare of hay, and he'd used one of the bales as a sort of makeshift headboard with his things stacked on top. The clothes they'd loaned him in the hospital were puddled on the floor beside the bed, abandoned in favor of the spare set of clothing he must have gotten from his bags. He definitely looked better in his green tunic and tan trousers. There was a shield leaning against the wall under the barn window, along with his sword and a bow and quiver. The saddlebags had hidden the full shape of the shield from view before, but she remembered seeing the bottom edge of it sneaking out from under the bags. She made a mental note to ask why he hadn't used it when he fought the Wolfos that had torn him up so badly.

She turned when she heard Link on the stairs. "It doesn't get too hot up here, does it?" she asked. She knew the moment it left her mouth that it was a stupid question.

"It's nice up here. There's a good breeze at night." He crossed to the mattress and sat down, pulling one of the bags from his 'headboard' into his lap. It was thick enough to fill his lap to overflowing, and there were three more of them on top of the bale of hay. He unbuckled the pack and lifted the flap, pulling out a group of what looked like masks. The outer mask was brown and round, strongly resembling a goron.

Link spread them out on the ground. There were five: the goron mask, one that looked like a zora, one Deku, one that bore the same markings as a gossip stone, and one that looked eerily like Link but with white hair and blue and red markings on the face. "I got these in Termina," Link said. "I got many others, too, but I leave most of them at home." He picked up the mask that looked like him and brought it carefully to his face. He held it there for a moment, staring at and through her, before finally setting it back on the ground. There was disappointment clear in his expression.

"What are they for?" Kira asked, running her fingers along the zora mask.

"These four," he indicated all but the gossip stone mask, "are masks of transformation. I could wear them and become a zora or a goron or Deku."

Her lips parted. She'd never heard of anything like it. "There was powerful magic in Termina, then," she said, moving her hand to feel the curves of the mask that looked like him.

His short laugh startled her. She looked up and found a weird light in his eyes, sort of manic or hysterical. "You have no idea."

"Then tell me," she said, tilting her head. She felt her forehead wrinkle as she stared at him. "I want to know."

The look he gave her was measuring. It took a moment before he nodded. "Alright. I'll tell you. Where do you want me to start?"

"The beginning, of course," she said, sticking her tongue between her teeth as she smiled.

So Link told her about being raised by the Kokiri, but having no fairy of his own until one morning the fairy Navi woke him from a strange nightmare that changed everything. He told her about meeting the princess Zelda and agreeing to a quest to open the door to the Sacred Realm so they could stop the plans of Ganondorf, the gerudo king her father so unwisely decided to trust. He described finding the three spiritual stones, which involved journeying the heart of the Great Deku Tree, the belly of a great fish, and the gorons' Dodongo Cavern. And he told her about the strange sense he had that the story was incomplete, the nightmares he sometimes had about a much larger quest and a broken Hylia he couldn't quite convince himself he'd prevented.

It all seemed two parts fairy tale and one part uncomfortably familiar to Kira, because the Hylia she remembered was a darker place than Link described. Things he said matched up with her memory of home, like the poison that ate away at the Great Deku Tree from the inside out. Other things didn't, though. No one ever healed the Great Deku Tree, for instance. A new one sprouted in His place. But she couldn't bring herself to interrupt him. He'd never spoken so much at once, and she didn't want him to stop.

He hadn't even gotten to Termina and the masks when Papa called from below, "Kirali Rivera! Get down here right now!" His voice was angry, but there was fear in it too.

"Papa!" she called back, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. "I'm fine! We're just talking!" She went down the stairs to face him and watched his expression shift from panic to fury. "We were just talking."

"I told you I don't want you alone with him," Papa said. His muted tone of voice killed the humor of the situation. He was genuinely angry. "I know you think you can trust him, Kira, but we don't know anything about him! He showed up looking the worse for a fight with a bear. That's not what trustworthy looks like."

Kira grit her teeth and felt her abdomen clench. There'd been no need to argue about Hylia since she was ten years old. She'd just let it go, because it didn't matter what he thought when she knew she couldn't make it home anyway. But Link was a piece of Hylia, and she understood him in a way Papa never could. "You don't understand what it's like where we come from," she said, matching his quiet tone. "I know it's not normal here, but it's different there." Sure, bloody young men didn't just show up on your doorstep every other day, but swords were common and occasionally someone did get attacked by a Wolfos or Stalfos and need treatment. "He's no danger to us, Papa. Trust me. I know it."

He stepped closer, crossing his arms over his chest. "You are seventeen years old, Kira. You don't know enough to decide if a normal boy is trustworthy, let alone a half-wild one from some cult."

Her face fell. "You know I made that up," she whispered. At least, she'd thought so.

Papa pulled her into a hug and kissed the tip of her ear. "That's the trouble, Kira. You might have made it up, but we don't actually know where you're from. A cult would make sense. Maybe it is the truth, even if you don't remember it."

Anger and frustration warmed her chest. The heat spread upward and grew until it pricked at her eyes and she found herself helplessly blinking back tears. She growled deep in her throat and yanked her wrist under her eye to wipe the wet away. "I'm going to my room," she said, her voice tight and hot. She pulled away from him and hid her face as she ran from the barn.

* * *

You may or may not have already started noticing some of my weird quirks in writing this. I have developed some pretty distinct (and possibly unique) views on the Hylia of Ocarina of Time over the years. For one instance, you may have noticed that Link doesn't remember saving Hylia as "adult Link." I try to drop these things in as naturally as possible. Hopefully it all makes sense to all you kind folks who do not share residence in my head :)

**Edited 6/25** to add a paragraph of Kira's reaction to Link's tale about finding the Spiritual Stones. Not a huge change, but necessary for continuity later on.


	7. Graduation

Graduation

Link had worked on the farm, slowly learning English and the staggering differences between Earth and Hylia, for three weeks. It was nice to be able to thank Angel and Laura for things like dinner and clothing without their daughter translating. Angel started having some of the young men who helped him around the ranch eat lunch with them and explained that this was the way it normally was, but he hadn't wanted to overwhelm Link at the beginning. It helped Link with his English. He got the sense that several of the men were also learning the language, and they joked and laughed with him in a way he could understand.

He was also beginning to get a sense of the scope of Earth, why Kirali was so sure that he couldn't survive out there alone with no sense of the language or customs. But it grew harder to believe that there wasn't magic here. What was the moving picture box but magic? What about the device called a laptop that let Kirali retrieve information from 'the internet'—any information she wanted? She called it science and described the electricity that powered everything as harnessed lightning, but the act of controlling something as powerful and wild as lightning was a small miracle by itself.

It was after those three weeks that Kirali asked him to leave the farm again, though only briefly. "I'm graduating," she said. "It's a big deal here, and I want you to be there." So she gave him new clothes to wear while she dressed in long white robes and a cap with a square top and a tassel hanging off one side.

They all loaded into Laura's car and drove to the Redlands Bowl, which Kirali said was not a part of her school despite sharing the name _Redlands_. Once there they lined into seats behind a sea of young women in the same robes as Kirali intermingled with young men in deep blue robes. Kirali, though, was one of maybe forty robed students who sat on a raised platform at the focal point of the arrangement.

Angel and Laura were beaming and crying throughout the ceremony, but it meant little to Link except discomfort and a mild sense of curiosity. There was a lot of talking, each speaker's voice amplified magically (or, he supposed, 'scientifically') throughout the amphitheater. Link's weak grasp of English was not enough to help him follow what was going on, so he sat in the heat and tried not to pull at the collar Kirali had buttoned tight around his neck. The worst of it was that he couldn't bring his cap. He'd refused to leave Tatl behind, but her fairy glow was so muted now that she hid easily nestled in his hair as long as no one tried to look too closely.

That wasn't a relief. It made him itch to be on the move, figuring out a way back to Hylia. But he sat patiently through the ceremony as hundreds of robed figures filed across the stage to the cheers of the audience. When Kirali crossed, Angel and Laura rose and screamed for her, their cheeks shining with sweat and tears.

Afterward they went to dinner at a restaurant, a sort of shop that specialized in serving food to its patrons. Kirali and her parents talked and laughed and occasionally cried, and though they did try to include Link from time to time and he could understand more of what they said, he was very much the outsider.

When they made it home, Link smiled and thanked them politely, but then retired to his room above the barn. The first thing he did was take off the suffocating shirt he'd been wearing all day, leaving just the sleeveless shirt Kirali had given him to wear underneath. Then he sat cross-legged on his bed and pulled out the ocarina, which he hadn't played in weeks—since before he arrived on Earth. He played a melody that had haunted his nightmare the night before, a song that he knew by heart but couldn't remember learning. It was the wrong choice. It made him feel more useless than he had already.

As the last of the notes trailed away, he looked up and noticed Kirali standing on the stairs, watching him. She was in the short white dress that had been under her robes for the ceremony, a slip of fabric so small and light it would have been indecent in Hylia. He averted his eyes and brought the ocarina down into his lap.

"Don't stop," Kirali murmured. "It's beautiful. I didn't realize you could play like that."

He shook his head and turned to put the ocarina away, but he heard her footsteps moving closer. The mattress dipped as she sat beside him, her knees brushing against his leg. He looked over at her, and then down the stairs, as had become habit whenever she came up into the barn. Only recently had Angel stopped watching them like the protective father he was whenever Kirali came to talk to him or hear about his past.

She put her fingertips against his elbow to bring his attention back and smiled. "I'm sorry about today. I didn't really think about how meaningless it would be to you when you can't understand what's going on. It meant a lot to me, and I guess… I forgot what it would be like for you."

"It's fine," he said. "But Kirali… I've been here way too long. I have to get moving. I can't accomplish anything here." In the silence that followed, he felt Kirali's stare but couldn't meet her eyes. He knew well enough she wanted him to stay. But she'd been here for years. Maybe she'd felt the hot need to get home once, but she didn't understand anymore. "Tatl's still hanging on, but she's so weak. I don't think she can last much longer."

Kirali still didn't answer. The silence dragged on. Link heard a choked breath and looked over to see her fighting tears. The moment she caught him looking she pushed against him, stumbling to her feet and sprinting down the stairs.

#

Kira managed to get her frustration under control before she reached the house. She wiped her cheeks against her arm and checked her reflection in the storm door; the porch light didn't allow for the best mirror, but she thought her face looked normal. As stupidly pissed as she was at Link for wanting to leave still—now, the night of her graduation—she didn't want Papa to think he'd done something to upset her. He'd go back to watching them like a hawk.

She slipped into the house. The light was on in the office, and she crossed to the door to say goodnight, but stopped when she heard her name. "… second mortgage is really the best option," Mama was saying. "The interest would be much lower than taking a loan from the school." She sighed. "I really thought the scholarship would cover more…"

Kira put her fingers over her mouth and pressed her back to the wall to listen. They were talking about Stanford. She'd gotten in with a partial scholarship and then hadn't thought about it much, especially since Link showed up.

"We'd have the money if it weren't for his hospital bills," Papa said. It wasn't angry, just resigned, like he'd said it many times before.

"I know honey. But you couldn't have just left him. Kira never would have forgiven us—and it was the right thing to do. It won't be so bad. If we take out a second mortgage we'll even have a little extra money for improvements to the ranch."

She didn't stay to listen to the rest. She snuck past, sticking to the shadows where they wouldn't notice her, and slipped up to her bedroom with her thoughts spinning through her head.

#

Kira hadn't woken with the sun in years, but she did that morning. She felt completely awake. Part of her was spinning out into space, but the larger part felt suddenly grounded. She went downstairs to have breakfast with Mama, Papa, and Link, and it didn't bother her when Link avoided her eyes.

When the boys left to do the milking, Kira stopped Link with a hand on his elbow. "I'll go with you. Just give me a few days to get the details worked out. Okay?"

There was confusion in the way his eyebrows drew together, but that contrasted with the brightest smile she ever remembered seeing on his face. He nodded and went out into the dawn light.

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Please review!


	8. Hopes and Fears

Hopes and Fears

"The hardest part was finding a place to start," Kirali said. She was babbling, but Link heard the emotion she was holding back. "There are tons of urban legends and supposed hauntings and things all over the US. But I think it'll be best to start with a paranormal investigations team. Personally I think they're full of crap, but it's worth checking out. There's even one nearby in Pasadena."

The silence stretched as they loaded her car, but she didn't let it go for long. "I'm sorry we have to leave Epona. There's just no practical way. And also, I think I'm going to start speaking English with you as much as possible. You'll get better that way."

Link let her talk. He put his shield and sword into the trunk on top of his saddlebags, though it made him feel naked not to have them, let alone his tunic and mail shirt. But Kirali insisted that they'd get by easier if he wore jeans and a t-shirt. He pulled his purse of rupees and the ocarina off his belt before he dropped it into the trunk as well. "You wanted to leave these?" he asked, interrupting her steady stream of chatter. He put the rupees into her hands.

"Oh yeah. Yeah. We should probably keep some. I have my graduation money, but… that'll only stretch so far." She stared down at the bag in her hands, finally quiet. Link watched her for a long time before he closed the trunk, which made her jump. "I better go leave these inside." She hesitated, meeting Link's gaze. Tears shone in her eyes but didn't fall. "Just wait here. I have to… I have to leave a note. It might take a little while. But I'll be back out." She turned and walked back to the house.

Link leaned against the car, his fingers playing a phantom tune on the ocarina pressed against his hip, and waited for Kirali to finish her goodbyes. She'd waited to leave until her father was attending the birth of a calf and her mother was still at work so she wouldn't have to face them, but he didn't think that made leaving any easier on her. He had little to compare it to.

When Kirali made it back, her face was red but she was done crying. She slid behind the wheel of her car and pulled the door shut. Link got in on his side and turned to watch her. "Thank you," he said.

She took a deep breath, nodded, and started the car. "I think it's about time I went home, too."

#

True to her word, Kirali spoke English after that. The drive to Pasadena took an hour and a half, and by the time they got there they had to stop for the night. They stopped at a little inn at the edge of town. Kirali called it a motel, and it was right next to something called an RV park.

Link didn't like the smell of the small room they rented. There was only one bed with an ugly mottled blanket over it. "I'll sleep on the floor," he said.

"You don't have to," Kirali said.

"I've slept in worse places."

She smiled and used the little black remote to turn on the TV across from the bed. "I can imagine. Whatever you want." Then her face lit up and she gestured for him to come sit beside her on the bed. "At least watch this with me for a few minutes. It's one of those ghost chasing shows. I'll show you why I'm not expecting much when we meet them tomorrow." Link understood enough to piece together the unfamiliar words when she spoke. His English really was getting better. He sat beside her on the bed, pulling his shoes off and tossing them on the floor.

A woman's face dominated the TV screen, uplit with greenish light. Her eyes were wide and darted from side to side. Sometimes the screen changed to a full view of the woman with that same odd lighting. There was a flicker of light to the side and the woman spun to look. She spoke, but the words were too quiet and muffled for Link to catch.

"I think some of the shows are really trying to find the paranormal," Kirali said. "But it's always something stupid." She listed some unfamiliar English phrases before finally clicking the TV off. She turned to him, drawing her knee up and twining her fingers together over her ankle. "Will you play the ocarina again? You stopped before."

Link pulled the ocarina from his pocket and rolled it over in his hands for a moment, filling his head with one of the happiest songs he knew. It was bittersweet now, but he still loved the melody of Saria's Song. He raised the instrument and played the first clear notes of the song.

Before long Kirali was humming along, a broad smile on her face, and then she burst out with laughter. "I know this song! Saria would sing this all the time!"

Link started, lowering the ocarina to his lap. "You knew Saria?"

"Sure," she said. "I even remember you, a little."

"You didn't say anything about it before," he said.

She shrugged a shoulder. "I didn't think you'd want to be remembered as the Boy Without a Fairy. It's clear you're so much more than that now." But then her brow furrowed with confusion and she stared at him, pressing the tip of her thumb to her lips.

"Why didn't I hear about you going missing?" he asked.

"I don't know." Her expression grew more clouded.

Link didn't like to see her unhappy. He filled his mind with another happy song—this time Epona's Song—and set the ocarina against his lips. Kirali grinned and leaned back against her pillow, her head nodding gently to the rhythm of the melody.

He would play Zelda's Lullaby next. It was a sweet song to carry her into her dreams.

#

Link woke with dawn light creeping into the room. He was on the floor beside the bed, but the blanket fell over him and Kirali's fingers were curled against his neck. He twisted his head to look up at her; she was sound asleep at the very edge of the bed so that he could just see the profile of her face.

"Tatl?" he whispered. It was habit to check on her in the morning, but there was less dread this time. She'd given a small chime of noise last night when he finished Zelda's Lullaby on the ocarina.

"Link." Her voice was so tiny he could convince himself he imagined it, but it was a word. She hadn't spoken at all in the weeks since they arrived on Earth.

He cupped his hand over her to help her stay in place as he crawled to his feet. His shoulder, though mostly healed, gave a twinge of pain after being trapped between his weight and the hard floor all night. He wanted to try playing the ocarina some more to see if it helped Tatl feel stronger, but he didn't want to wake Kirali.

She was only half under the covers. Most of them had pooled on the floor around Link. He took a moment to pull the covers back over her and then scooped up the ocarina and the tiny plastic rectangle that served as a room key. Kirali rolled toward him as he eased the door open, but she didn't wake. He slipped out into the early morning light, inhaling the comforting scent of dawn.

One of the strangely familiar melodies had infused his nightmares again, but it was less unpleasant than usual. He ran it through his mind as he moved away from the motel, crossing in front of the RV park. When the song felt comfortable, he raised the ocarina and played. The light, lilting melody reminded him of the princess—and of how she'd pushed him away after he opened the door in the Temple of Time. After Ganondorf had disappeared. He'd never gotten a straight answer about what happened to the gerudo king.

The melody drew to a close, the notes fading away around him. He glanced into the RV park and found he had a small audience gathered between two huge, boxy car-like shapes with vivid murals painted on their sides. He grinned, bemused, as he surveyed the handful of odd people watching him—one of them applauded quietly—but then the expression froze on his face and all his muscles went rigid. Standing among his audience was a familiar figure that made his nerves scream and his hand raise to a sword hilt that was absent, locked in the trunk of Kirali's car.

Ganondorf's green skin and fiery hair was wildly out of place on Earth. He locked eyes with Link; his posture was equally rigid, but there was calculation in the way his stare measured Link. Even in his Earth clothes, Link didn't doubt that Ganondorf recognized him.

And Ganondorf recovered first. He erupted with booming laughter and strode toward Link. "Long time, no see, kid!" he said in English. But Link watched him turn cautious once he got close, putting the lie to the friendly greeting.

He took a step back. There was something about Ganondorf that set Link's blood on fire—something more than just Zelda's suspicion when they were kids or the way he disappeared from the court without a trace. Every instinct screamed danger at Link, and his palms beaded with sweat in a way they never would if he had his sword in his hands.

Ganondorf switched over to hushed hylian when he got close to Link. "Relax, kid. If you're here, we have the same problem. I'm a reasonable man. We can work together." He had his hands up slightly and kept his distance. Link recognized the nonthreatening stance, but he didn't trust it for a second. "Come on, kid. I always respected you. Maybe you don't trust me, that's fine, but you've got to admit we could help each other now."

Link didn't know why every instinct told him to get the hell away from this man. Sure, last he'd seen the gerudo king he'd been barreling after Impa and Zelda on horseback, intent on capturing them. But he hadn't succeeded. He'd disappeared, and Link hadn't seen him in six years.

But Link was always one to trust his instincts. He shook his head and backed away, his eyes locked on Ganondorf until he was sure the gerudo wouldn't follow. Then he turned and sprinted back to the room.

* * *

Ho there, plot! Fancy meeting you here!

PS: I noticed while writing the next chapter that I made a slightly glaring continuity error. I'm trying to make minor edits to fix it as subtly as possible. Blargh. So far the biggest edit has been fixing this chapter less than an hour after posting it, haha.


	9. A Missing History

The plot advances :D I had to make minor revisions to chapter 6 and 8 to correct an oversight before posting this. Just a paragraph or two in each chapter, not much. I fixed chapter 8 within an hour of posting it so most people probably already read the revised version there.

Anyway, hope you enjoy. As always, I appreciate reviews. To Xilent and Hat Guy in particular, thanks for sticking around so far! :)

PS: I went back and added chapter titles. I'm not in love with all of them. If you have suggestions for better ones, please do leave them in the reviews. :)

* * *

A Missing History

Link was back when Kira got out of the shower. She smiled when she saw him, but the expression fled her face when she took in his anxious pacing. There was wildness in his blue eyes when he looked up and caught her staring. "We have to get out of here," he said in Hylian. "We have to go, now."

She lowered the towel from her hair, letting the wet strands drop against her shirt. "What's wrong?"

"He's here," Link said. His voice was breathless. "Ganondorf. The gerudo king, remember? He's out there, in that RV park thing." He paused and put a hand on the back of his neck. "I don't know why he feels so—so dangerous. But he does."

Kira's first instinct was to make some condescending comment questioning whether he hadn't just seen someone who resembled Ganondorf, but she kept it to herself. She didn't want to doubt Link, especially when he looked as panicked as he did right now. "He wouldn't have any power here," she said instead. "And this isn't the sort of place where you just attack someone in the open. I don't think he could harm you even if he wanted to."

He was starting to calm, but she didn't think it was her words that did it. "I'd feel better with a sword in my hands," he said.

"But you'd look ridiculous walking down the street with one." She smiled and brought the towel back to her hair, drawing the moisture out. "What happened?"

"He spoke to me. He said we have the same problem, and he wanted to work together."

If they'd spoken, then it really was Ganondorf. She drew her lower lip through her teeth and glanced at him from under her eyelashes. Link wouldn't like what she was thinking. But if Ganondorf was here, he'd probably been here the last six years, ever since he disappeared in Hylia. There was no telling what he'd been through since then, but if his first thought was to work together with Link, he'd probably spent his time trying to get home. What other problem could they share but the problem of being stuck on Earth?

He had a head start on them.

"Link…"

He shook his head and held up a hand. "I know what you're thinking."

"He might be able to help. Honestly I barely looked into getting home. It was hard to do much at all when I looked ten years old. He might have figured out things—we've been looking for a place to start—"

Link shook his head again, more vigorously this time, and then sat down on the bed with his hands clenched together between his knees. "You don't know who you're talking about. He's here for a reason. Even if he could help, would we really want him back in Hylia?"

The silence stretched for a long time. Kira wasn't sure what to say, but going to talk to some idiot paranormal investigators seemed ridiculous now. They were right next door to someone else from Hylia. It only made sense to work together. "Can't we at least talk to him?" she asked. "He couldn't hurt you here. We can just talk, and then decide what to do from there. Please?"

She heard him pull in a long breath, and then his shoulders went still. He didn't move at all for a long time, even to breathe. Kira realized she was holding her breath too when her lungs started to burn, and she exhaled, but still he didn't move. Finally he released his breath in a loud rush and ran his fingers through his hair, stopping when fingertips grazed against the fairy still nestled at the crown of his head. "We can try," he murmured. Then his voice grew stronger and he looked up, catching and holding her stare. "But if it doesn't feel right, if anything seems off at all, we're leaving."

"Fine," she said. "Of course." She hung her towel up and then grabbed her brush, running it through her hair as quickly as she could manage without ripping out any tangles. "We'd better hurry, then. There's no telling what he's doing here or how long he'll stay." Her hair was too wet to hide her pointed ears, but for once she didn't care. The damp collar growing on her shirt was annoying, but it would dry. She crossed to the door and paused when she grabbed the handle, looking back at Link.

He stared back at her and sighed, pushing himself back to his feet. Kira turned back to the door and pulled it open—and closed her mouth on a gasp of surprise. A huge man with green skin and red hair framing his face lounged against a pole across from the door. His nose and forehead dominated his face, and his eyebrows cut all the way back to his hairline. He nodded his head toward her, his lips curving into a smirk. "Ganondorf," Kira guessed, her pulse slowing back toward normal. Link had neglected to describe him to her. A simple, _Oh, by the way, he's green_ would have helped to prepare her. In fact, it seemed an odd detail to skip over.

Suddenly Link was between them, his jaw tight as he stared at Ganondorf. The gerudo king didn't move. His arms were crossed over his chest and there was an air of amusement surrounding him. He raised an eyebrow, looking Link up and down. "You haven't aged a day in the last six years," he said. "If it's possible… you look even younger. How is that, young hero?"

Last night's conversation with Link slammed back into Kira's mind. She remembered him—the Boy Without a Fairy—but there was something wrong with the memory, and it was exactly what Ganondorf had pointed out. Link was too young. The Boy Without a Fairy had disappeared from Kokiri Forest long before Kirali herself had. It was right when everything started to get dark. When the Great Deku Tree died. She hadn't even thought about it because with everything going on in the forest, she'd honestly thought he was killed. And the death of the Boy Without a Fairy did not connect with Link, alive and well with her now, fully thirteen years after his disappearance in Hylia. "There's something missing," she whispered, edging backward toward the bed.

She felt Link's hand on her shoulder as she sank down onto the mattress, but she didn't look up. She was trying to work through the chaos in her head. She put Link's stories next to her memories again, this time mashing the conflicting parts together to see if she could bridge the gaps. "Link, how long were you in Termina?" Maybe there was something there that would make the math line up...

"Three days," he said.

"No, I mean how long was it in Hylia? How much time passed while you were gone?"

"Three days," he repeated. "For me it was weeks. I couldn't believe it when I got home and checked, but it was three days for them, too."

"It doesn't make sense." She looked up and met his eyes. There was concern there so deep that there was no more trace of his anxiety over Ganondorf's presence, though she could hear sounds from outside that told her the door was still wide open. "Link, the Hylia I left isn't the one you told me about. No one restored my Great Deku Tree to health. He died, and a new Tree sprouted in his place. We mostly lived scattered in the forest because monsters had overrun our villages. When I came to Earth, it was because I was running from Wolfos that had my scent."

His eyebrows drew together. "You didn't say anything—" But then his back stiffened and he stepped away, turning to face the door. Ganondorf was silhouetted in the doorframe, his weight leaned against one forearm pressed to the wood. His bulk blocked most of the light.

"I think I need to hear what's happened in Hylia since I left," Ganondorf said. Intensity hid beneath the drawl of his voice.

"I think you need to leave," Link said, so quickly that it had to be reflex.

Kira put a hand on his leg. "Link, I need to understand this. You do too." She took a deep breath. "You remember me telling you about the Boy Without a Fairy. That I remember you, from before. But what I didn't say, what I couldn't say because it didn't make any sense—" He was looking at her now, and it felt like she was trapped in that stare. "Link, the Boy Without a Fairy disappeared thirteen years ago. Six years before I ever got to Earth."

His brow furrowed. "But… what? Was there—maybe there was another Boy Without a Fairy?"

She was already shaking her head when Ganondorf spoke up. "No. I see what must have happened."

He had Kira's attention. She stared at him, waiting. He looked between the two of them and a little smirk grew on his face. Kira's eyes narrowed. "Look. Tell us or get the hell out." Even though she was speaking Hylian, she still cursed in English.

Ganondorf straightened and raised his hands toward them, palm out, appeasing. "There's no humor in it," he said. Maybe it was his version of an apology. "But sometimes pretending humor makes it easier." He lowered his hands and grimaced. "Can I come in?"

It looked like the question was difficult to get out. Kira didn't like the idea of having this conversation with him in the doorway, their voices carrying Goddess-knows-where. She stood and grabbed the back of the chair that was tucked under the room's tiny desk, skidding it across the floor toward him. "Shut the door."

Link didn't look comfortable with the arrangement, but he kept whatever he felt to himself as Ganondorf closed the door and set the chair in front of it. He sat down and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee, then he put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the door. It was obnoxiously casual. "The princess must have turned back time," he said. His eyes fell, and Kira followed his stare to the ocarina in Link's hands. Blue was a weird color for an ocarina. "That instrument had the power to shuttle you back and forth through time. I guess it would have the power to turn it back, too. To undo the damage to Hylia. It would be easier than rebuilding."

"What are you talking about?" Kira asked.

Ganondorf hesitated. He settled the chair's legs back on the floor and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his leg. He took a deep breath. "I am the reason your Boy Without a Fairy disappeared. He opened the path to the Sacred Realm, to the Triforce, and I took it. Or tried to." He laughed; it made Kira cringe. "Blasted thing scattered to the four winds. Well, as I found out later, to Link and his princess. And the Sages sealed Link away until he was old enough to handle the power." He eyed Link carefully. Kira realized that his muscles were tense—waiting, she supposed, for Link's reaction.

But when she looked at Link, she found an almost blank expression on his face. He was staring in Ganondorf's direction, but not at him. There was focus missing from his eyes. Then he came back to the moment, but slowly—first in the flickering of his eyes, then in the way his forehead wrinkled, and finally in the shaking of his head. "So… what? What then?" She wasn't sure he believed it. Hell, she wasn't sure she believed it.

"So then you woke. And you came after me. And you beat me down, and the princess and the Sages sealed me away into the Evil Realm." He threw his arms out in a wide gesture. "Earth, as it turns out."

"And then the princess resets time?" Kira said. "But somehow time keeps moving on Earth."

"Maybe because the magic's been locked away here," Ganondorf said, nodding. "Or maybe it was intentional. What good would it do to set time back everywhere? She'd just undo everything they did to defeat me and lock me away in this realm."

Kira felt anger heating her belly, but it was dull, old. Shapeless. It took a moment to place it. The last few years in Hylia had been dark for her. Mainly survival. She hadn't told Link—someone like him wouldn't understand it—but that was a huge part of why she didn't fight harder to get home. Here she had Mama and Papa and a million other things. But she was starting to remember the stories again. The words whispered from Kokiri to fairy to fairy to Kokiri of the dark man who had come and poisoned the Great Deku Tree and the rest of the forest with Him. Until now that hadn't connected with Link's story, with Ganondorf. "It was you," she whispered, locking eyes with the gerudo king.

He held her gaze. She couldn't tell what was going on behind his cool expression. He had hawk-gold eyes and his stare creeped her out, but she wasn't going to be the first one to look away.

Her resolve vanished when Link surged to his feet. She looked up at him and was, for the first time, afraid of him. His jaw was set, his glare was murderous, and he paced along the foot of the bed with one hand clenched around the other. He rubbed the back of his left hand with his thumb like he was massaging an ache. But he wasn't lunging for Ganondorf. "You said locked away."

The words startled Kira. Link stopped pacing and glared at Ganondorf. Whatever she had missed, the gerudo king obviously hadn't. He nodded once, sharp. Kira glanced from one to the other and tried to figure out what was passing between them. "What are you talking about?"

"The magic," Ganondorf told her. "It's locked away."

"Not gone," Link said. His tone was still hot, but he seemed to have his anger contained. "All we have to do is unlock it."


End file.
